Humility for me has come to mean the ability to accept who I am, and not try to be somebody or something else. That is not often an easy task. There it true power in that acceptance. I think it was in one of the Viterbo Servant Leadership classes I attended where I heard that humility and humus both come from the same root words. Accepting that I come from and return to the earth holds a lot of potential for me in letting go of a lot of my misconceptions about who or what I am.
It is sometimes the younger less egotistical members of our society that can best remind us what it really means to be humble or to accept our place in the big scheme of things. A couple of weeks ago I decided to go to mass at a church I had never been to before. I crawled into one of the old wooden pews that filled the church and sat down feeling a bit nervous in the darkened interior. In the old hymnal shelf on the back of the pew in front of me, someone had left a folded piece of paper that had been torn from a spiral notebook. Not able to contain my curiosity, I reached for it and opened it up.
Inside was a simple drawing of a large house that nearly filled the paper. On the top of the steep roof of the home was a chimney with a twirl of smoke rising up. In the top right hand corner of the paper was a quarter section of a large beaming sun with rays of light reaching out towards the rest of the paper and all it contained. Three windows let the sunlight into the house, and a doorway allowed the people within to go out. The anonymous artist had written an inscription on the top of the paper over the house that read, “A house is big. I am littil.” This simple drawing contained some rich messages. The chimney and sun were reminders of the warmth of the people that lived inside and the creation that existed outside. The windows and doors were reminders for the need of the people to interact with the rest of creation. And the words of wisdom written across the top of the paper were a clear demonstration of what humility is really all about. It is not how big or small we are as people, but that we know our place and how we fit in and connect to the rest of it that really matters.
Tom, I believe humility is also nurtured by having the insight to see larger meanings in local, particular events, as you did in this example. Greenleaf would say that this kind of heightened awareness takes us out of the "poor me" kind of false humility and makes the world sparkle with meaning.
One should remain humble until those they are dealing with cross the line of rudeness, ignorance and lack of knowledge in the subject matter they claim to have mastered.
Humility provides an aura of self-confidence that gives others the opportunity to express themselves without fear or "humiliation" from those who claim to have all the answers and make decisions based on hierarchy because they can.
One cannot and should not consider himself a servant-leader without this quality. If one sees humility as something less than adequate, it is the same person who bullies and drives fear into their environment because of title and position. How sad.
Being a humble leader allows others to take control of their lives. Leaders who cannot be humble are those that wish to control everything and everybody within their reach.
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